April Fool's

My plans for April Fools' day got hijacked by a trip to the Emergency Department (ugh, no offense to you wonderful ED docs, but I really don't like visiting you at work).

J-boy slipped climbing up a ladder at the playground - it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't too fun, either. We'd ridden our bikes over and met up with Heather and then Ryan stopped off on his way home from school. J-boy hit his chin, Ryan (med-student-super-hero) checked him out and drove us home while Heather rode my bike w/ her baby and K-lady back to our house. I was SO GLAD they were there! I wasn't excited about J-boy riding his bike with his chin dripping blood all the way home. :) And though my little stock of bandaids and neosporin came in handy, it wasn't quite enough!

Joseph was still at work, and (bless them!) Heather and Ryan stayed with the girls so I could take J-boy to what I thought was our urgent care clinic. Nope! Scary part of town and scary psycho clinic (literally and descriptively - psychiatric care). After chatting with a phone-nurse via cell for a while I ended up just taking him to Children's Hospital where the urgent clinic said, "Sorry we don't do stitches! To the ED for you!" Which roughly translates to "This may take a while."

(nice nostril shot, no?)

J-boy did great the whole time we were waiting. But as soon as the doc came in to start with the sutures he freaked out. Poor boy was so worn out by then (he fell around 5:00, and finally got stitched up around 9:00), and though I'm pretty sure the local anesthetic stuff worked it couldn't numb his imagination. :)
Finally we made it out - never counted the stitches since I was wracking my brains to come up with some wonderfully diverting and distracting story I could share (the only thing I came up with were stories about my own stitches experiences.... I don't think that helped). :) But he had somewhere around 8. The doctor said no bike riding or running or jumping or being-a-boy for a week while they healed. That lasted almost 16 hours, which I felt was probably long enough. After all, we had Easter eggs to hunt and zoos to visit. :) All's well that ends well!

"pasketti" night

K-lady and Joseph decided we need to have a Spaghetti Night - cloth-napkin bibs, no cutting of noodles allowed, and meatballs are a must.  I'm good with that. Friday is pizza, Saturday is leftovers, Monday is spaghetti (though after a month of spaghetti night, I'm starting to think we need to shake it up a bit - maybe fettucine alfredo next time???)
Anyway, it does make menu planning a little easier!




You heard the man - (but could you understand him?) - GET SOME PESKETTI!!!
 Do your kids turn into complete goofs when the video camera's on??

Spring Break in Jeresey!!

Get ready for a LOT of pictures (5 adults + 5 cameras + 5 days = 459 pictures!)

We decided to hit the road for K-lady's Spring Break this year -- Joseph couldn't get time off, but my sister and nephew came along to keep my children entertained so we could all meet this wonderful little man:

my new nephew!  Isn't he handsome?  Dave, Angela and their kids live in New Jersey, about a 10 hour drive.  We had such a good time visiting with them and just loving up the time we had together. 

 Dave is such a good uncle -- he even set up a tent for a camp out in the back yard one of the nights we were there.  Baby A and I opted for beds inside, but Dave and the older two slept out there all night (with the electric blanket plugged into the house).  Cousin Bailey started out with them, but apparently she was too much of a party animal and got banished to the master bedroom.  :)

We spent the first day of Spring on the Jersey Shore -- Baby A and J-boy's first time to the Atlantic ocean.  It was COLD, but that didn't stop my kids from getting wet!  :)

 My wonderful mom was there, too -- bonus!!!

 

We got to visit Dave's "office"

This little guy is such a sweet sweet baby!  And Angela is such a sweet sweet momma.

all the cousins!  It's a good bunch.

The whole crew (minus mom, who is taking the picture).  There are always a few moans when we announce that it's time for a family picture, but I never regret having them. 

miscellaneous moments

A few little updates for the good ol' blog...

Joseph broke his hand playing church ball -- the arrow points to the diagonal fracture in his middle-finger hand bone (sorry, no technical medical terms from this music major). It's been healing really well -- because the bones on either side keep the middle bone in place he didn't need a cast and has been wearing a brace for the last few weeks. Hopefully he can ditch it soon! It was a good wake up call for him - no contact sports that put his career in jeopardy, thank you very much!

J-boy and Baby A got a hold of my make up bag. I really thought this kid was old enough to know better. Apparently Baby A is a bad influence. :) Every time she sees my make up bag she says, "Eye! Eye!" That kid loves eye shadow. :)

Happy late St. Patty's Day! Do they look lucky, or what??? :) I made the banner with my cricut, cut clovers out of knit and sewed them to plain white shirts, made Baby A a new hair bow and leprechaun hats out of felt for the big kids. We ate corned beef with cabbage, potatoes and carrots, and lemon (golden) jello for dinner. I think it's the first time I've ever served my children jello -- they were completely amazed by it. :) I think that's the most attention that holiday has ever gotten from me. :)

J-boy decided he was done with training wheels, so I broke out my new baby seat (Christmas gift from mom and dad!), and now we can't get enough of the family bike rides. We need to get another grown up bike so Joseph can come with us on weekends. :) I really really really love this - what a fun phase of parenting!!

Other updates -- Joseph had a trip to check out potential practices. It was a good trip and now we know what we DON'T want! A few days later the kids and I took our own trip out to New Jersey to visit my brother's family and met a new little boy to adore. :) I'll post about that soon.

J-boy turns FIVE!

The day after his birthday we were driving in the car and J-boy announced, "Mom, I made a wish  when I blew out my candles, but I can't tell you what it was, but it was a really good wish."  Then about 30 seconds later, "Mom, I can't tell you what my wish is, because then it might not come true."  Another 30 seconds later, "Mom, my wish is to drive a big rocket, but I'm not going to tell you because I want it to come true."  :)  We had a little chat about 'driving' rockets, and how you should learn to fly airplanes first -- now he wants to be just like Uncle Dave and fly an airplane "big enough to fit a car inside!"  :)

 

(the birthday cake picture has been modified from the original version - it has been formatted for the blog) :)

Then the next day we got to visit the dr. and the pharmacy - poor kiddo had strep and bronchial ickiness (my interpertation of the official diagnosis) so we had fun with the antibiotics and the albuteral. But he's all better now!

One of his gifts -- he loved digging for treasure -- by the time he was done my entire kitchen was covered in a thin layer of treasure island.  If there is a next time for this sort of gift, I'll try to give it in the summer - this would have been a good OUT DOOR activity. ;)

J-boy picked this sword out on amazon and waited (ANXIOUSLY) for it's arrival by mail.  :)  He's been through at least a dozen plastic or foam swords in his short life, and had been wanting a new one for quite some time, so this was perfect!  It also came with a mask (serious J-boy bonus!!!)  It hasn't broken yet!!!  It's a G.I.Joe toy and came with a dog tag, too -- J-boy says, "Don't call me [J-boy] -- call me G.I.J-boy."

And for my un-scrapbooking purposes:

J-boy is such a fun kid - he loves to play with and clober his little sister, he loves to play with and mimic his older sister.  He does have a slight problem with his wardrobe - poor kid can't choose an outfit without emptying every drawer in the dresser.  It gets kind of tough putting ALL those clothes away every day.  :)  He's also frustrated that he's now 5 and still wearing clothes with a 4 on them.  :)

favorite color: dark green

favorite movie: pixars' short on Cars - Mater and the Ghostlight

favorite game: freeze tag

favorite song: If you're happy and you know it

favorite accessory: green swimming goggles (at the moment)

Love that kid. :)

Snow Animals

Joseph's at it again --  I love seeing him play with our kids. :)

Valentine's Day

(I think these pictures have aged sufficiently that I can now blog about them)

Heather, Ryan and L joined us for Valentine's Day dinner - it was really fun. It seems like having more people around always makes it a better celebration. We had Heather's red chicken with pink rice, pink faux-tatoes (mashed cauliflower - not a big hit!), and salad with strawberries and bacon. Mmmm bacon. Heather also made the awesome cupcakes - so pretty!!!

The night before Heather had babysat for us so Joseph and I could go to a Valentine's party. It was so fun! We played a few games, carved our initials in the 'love tree' (a bare-branched paper tree taped to the wall), the girls made cards for the husbands while the husbands drew crayon dipictions of our first date (the girls had to pick which one was their own). The ladies brought their husbands favorite desserts (Joseph got a hot-lava-ish-fudge cake w/ ice cream & hot fudge sauce), and the husbands brought a poem they'd written for their wives. Joseph's was beautiful - it was so sweet - I had to be careful not to cry. :)  Joseph and I won one of the games and got a prize - some Valentine's treats including Twilight conversation hearts (not the ones in the bowl up there)!  I laughed so hard - things like "True Love" and "Forever" and "Bite Me."  So romantic. :)

Joseph is a great husband, and it was lovely to have our own little Valentine's night. And then to celebrate again with our darling family the next day was just the icing on the cake (or cupcake, as the case may be).

Valentine's Day completely destroyed my diet (I was doing a little South Beach action - hence the mashed faux-tatoes). But that's okay. I was not very happy without my carbs and fruit in phase one, so now I'm skipipng to phase two(ish) -- I feel like it's a better balance now. I'm hoping that someday I can actually figure out how to eat sweets in moderation and have one of those active, fit and healthy lifestyles (a proper ending to a post that began with a humongous bowl full of candy, right?)